Brexit Is A Crime

The latest Brexit Lie from the Government and the Daily Mail

The Mail headline containing the misleading claim

The Mail is up to its old tricks again with a claim that the EU ordered the UK to remove Crown Marks from pint glasses.

Whilst the EU insists that there is a CE mark on glasses, EU rules do not prevent a Government from placing other marks such as the Crown on items such as glasses as the following 2 news items explain

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/59868823.amp

https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2007/05/09/Tories-claim-EU-crown-pint-victory

The Mail article is therefore misleading and factually incorrect

Please help us put a stop to this sort of behaviour by the Mail by complaining to IPSO

Here is the IPSO complaints form – it only takes a few minutes to complain

https://www.ipso.co.uk/complain/complaints-form/

You will need this link to the Mail Story dated 29th May

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10864245/Boris-Johnson-brings-Crown-symbol-pint-glasses-Queens-Platinum-Jubilee.html

And quote the headline:

“Cheers Ma’am! Boris Johnson brings back Crown symbol on our pint glasses for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – 18 years after the EU ordered us to remove them”

Happy complaining!

Russian Interference in British Politics including the EU Membership Referendum

There has been widespread acknowledgement that Putin and his government have been interfering in the democratic processes of various countries for years, including the UK, where our government has acknowledged that the Russians interfered in the Scottish Independence referendum in 2014 and the 2019 general election.

However, when it comes to the 2016 EU referendum, despite strong suspicions, the ‘Russia Report’ indicated that the UK government has made no attempt to investigate these suspicions. This decision is particularly hard to accept given that one of the obvious beneficiaries of Brexit, if not the most obvious, was Russia. This was reflected in comments by the former Russian Ambassador to the UK, Alexander Yakovenko, that the Russians had “crushed the British to the ground” when referring to Brexit.

Given this background, the pro European community has always been concerned about the distinct possibility that Russia had interfered in the EU membership referendum with many pro Europeans being very disappointed that the “Russia Report” failed to address this issue.

With this in mind, I have been of the opinion for some time that the issue of Russian interference in the EU membership referendum needs to be investigated thoroughly and, given the pro Brexit stance of current Government, independently.

Accordingly, immediately following the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, I set up a parliamentary petition calling for a public inquiry into potential Russian interference in British politics with the aim of protecting our democracy and determining the extent of any Russian interference in UK politics including the extent of any undue influence the Russians may have had over our democratic processes and institutions, including Government Ministers and Members of Parliament.

You can view and sign our petition here https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/609388

Our petition quickly reached the 10,000 mark meaning the government had to respond, which eventually they did, and not in a particularly reassuring way, essentially saying that they would not be holding a public inquiry as there was a robust process in place to protect the UK from foreign interference (the full response can be seen below).

There may well be a process in place, but as the House Intelligence and Security Committee found that the Government didn’t bother looking for evidence of Russian interference, one has to ask how effective those processes can be, if indeed they were used to try and detect Russian interference at all!

This is simply not acceptable, which leads one to ask why the Government doesn’t want this issue investigated. Apart from the fact that the government is dominated by anti Europeans who would not want their precious Brexit undermined any further, there is a potential further explanation. The amount of money donated to the Conservative Party and individual Conservative MPs by Russians and Russian owned companies runs into millions, possibly as much as £5,000,000.

The Tory Party is awash with Russian Cash

That in itself is a concerning figure, especially given the background of some of the individuals who have donated money, which includes making millions from the sale of munitions to the Russian armed forces, some of which are no doubt being used against Ukrainian civilians as I write this!

Bluntly the Government has failed to fully investigate and assess the extent of Russian interference in British politics including the 2016 EU membership referendum and that needs to be corrected.

We will therefore continue to promote our petition with aim of achieving 100,000 signatures and forcing a parliamentary debate in the issue.

You can view and sign our petition here https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/609388

Full text of the Government response:

The UK has a robust process to protect against foreign interference, led by the intelligence and security agencies. There are no plans to alter this approach or initiate a public inquiry.

It is, and always shall be, an absolute priority for the Government to protect the UK’s democratic processes against foreign interference. The Intelligence and Security Agencies produce and contribute to regular assessments of state threats, including potential malign interference. We keep those assessments under constant review and, where necessary, update them in response to new intelligence. As new information emerges, the Government will always consider the most appropriate use of any intelligence received, including whether it might be appropriate to make that intelligence public. Given this long standing approach, there are no plans to initiate a public inquiry into Russian interference.

Interference in democratic processes is an international issue, affecting not only the UK. That is why the UK Government will continue to call out and respond to malign activity, including any attempts to interfere in our democratic processes, alongside our international partners including the Five Eyes countries and NATO.

Protecting and promoting a flourishing democracy is a cross-cutting challenge and requires coordinated action. That is why the Government is bringing forward a package of legislation that delivers ambitious reform. Our National Security legislative proposals will give the intelligence agencies and law enforcement the tools they need to tackle the diversifying and evolving threats we face. Our Online Safety Bill proposes a range of measures that will help protect democratic discourse, such as forcing companies to tackle illegal misinformation and disinformation, and by tackling online abuse. Our Elections Bill contains a range of reforms, including strengthening rules on ineligible foreign campaign spending. All of this legislative work is supported by the cross-government Defending Democracy programme, which brings together expertise and capabilities from across Government departments, the Security and Intelligence Agencies and civil society to ensure UK democracy remains open, vibrant and secure.

You can view and sign our petition here https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/609388

Russian Interference in British Politics

The pictures of the unwarranted and criminal Russian aggression coming out of Ukraine are heart breaking and are thoughts are with the Ukrainian people.


These terrible events in Ukraine are sadly just the latest episode in unjustified and unacceptable Russian interference in the affairs of other countries


The UK has not escaped Russian attention with the Intelligence and Security Committee Russia report, released on 21 July 2020 indicating that there is substantial evidence that Russian interference in the British economy and politics is commonplace, with strong suspicions that they interfered in the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum, the 2016 EU Membership referendum and the 2019 General Election.


The report described the UK as one of Russia’s “top targets” as it was “seen as central to the Western anti-Russian lobby”


This interference is simply not acceptable, and the issue needs to be fully and publicly addressed.
Our Government have not addressed this issue, and indeed has refused to do so in the case of the 2016 EU Membership referendum . One can only speculate about the reason for this refusal, but it is common knowledge that Russians have donated substantial amounts of money to both the Conservative Party and a large number of individual Tory MPs.


This needs to change.


Please sign our petition calling for a public inquiry into Russian interference in British politics


https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/609388

Pro Europeans need a reason to vote for Starmer

Earlier this week Starmer said that there was no route back to EU membership and as usual when Starmer opens his mouth on Brexit a lot of heads start nodding. So let me say this yet again.

There is no reason why we cannot campaign to rejoin the EU now. None. There may not be a strong majority with the electorate for rejoining at present but what is the point of campaigning if it is not to change minds?

When Farage started campaigning to leave the EU, was there a majority in favour of quiting – No! Did that stop him? No! He went ahead and changed minds (albeit by lying) – that is what we need to do now (without the lying)!

Starmer is simply chasing the red wall vote instead of leading on the issue of Brexit and that needs to change. WE need to change his mind!

That is what campaigning is all about!

Yes, there will be obstacles that need to be tackled along the way – so let’s identify them and tackle them rather than just giving up and rolling over in defeat and accepting what Starmer says!

I am sick to death of hearing Starmer is right. No he is not right! All he wants to do (understandably) is follow what he feels is the easiest route into number 10. He wants power, simple as that. That is his job as Leader of the Labour Party. But if that involves being pro brexit, then I and many others will never vote for him.

I and many other pro Europeans are not Labour supporters and the pro European movement is not here to get Starmer elected. In fact just 39% of Remain voters in 2016 had voted Labour the year before in the general election.

If Starmer wants our support he must offer us something better than make Brexit work! He must give us a good reason to vote for him. Voting to swap one pro brexit PM whose ideology many of us disagree with for another pro brexit PM whose ideology many of us disagree with offers us nothing!

So my message to Starmer supporters and Labour Party members and supporters is this – if you want the rest of us to vote for Starmer at the next election, campaign and take action within the Labour Party to change his and the Labour Party stance on Brexit and EU membership. Give us a reason to vote for him instead of repeatedly trying to tell us that there is no alternative!

2021 – some thoughts about the last year and the future

2021 has been a year of mixed fortunes for pro Europeans including UKIN.EU, not least because so many aspects of life continue to be overshadowed by Covid. Covid has made, and continues to make, campaigning very difficult, indeed the recent appearance of the Omicron variant puts a big question mark over future events, particularly those that involve large numbers of people. It may be some time before we can go back to some traditional methods of campaigning.

Nonetheless, the first half of 2021 saw a number of successes for us as a campaigning organisation.


We continued to grow in terms of both our size and our reach across all our channels, we developed various formats for future campaign such as our successful ‘blue and yellow’ campaign promoting the benefits of EU membership, we produced several successful videos explaining the history of the EU and its values, our mini campaigns against inaccurate headlines in the Express, and of course we ran our I Am European campaign focussing on the census in March.

Whilst the results of our efforts relating to the census campaign will not be known for several months, the campaign was very well received across the pro European community and managed to rattle our opposition. It was even reported in the Express!

But more important than anything else, the campaign demonstrated that the pro European movement was still in business and wasn’t about to go away.

So, whatever the end result as far as the census is concerned, the campaign was successful – it brought the pro European community together and demonstrated to the world that we are still here and still active.

Unfortunately, the second half of 2021 has been much more difficult and in many ways concerning, and highlights that the pro European movement still has a long way to go if it is to be successful, with two issues in particular giving cause for concern.

Firstly there is the issue of professionalism within the pro European movement.

This has manifested itself in many ways with perhaps the most prominent of these issues being the failure of the organiser of the march planned for May next year to arrange Public Liability Insurance, which leaves anyone involved in organising the march or anyone attending the march unprotected and at risk. Hopefully the issue will be resolved, but sadly several months after the issue was raised, I still haven’t seen any evidence that it has been addressed.

Whilst this is very disappointing, it should be relatively easy to fix. What may not be so easy to address is the issue of the unacceptable behaviour of some individuals within the pro European movement which has sadly involved dishonesty and abusive behaviour, neither of which are acceptable.

Sadly, I have to report that the issue of abusive behaviour has caused problems within our campaign. In September I had no choice but to remove a senior member of the Campaign from UKIN.EU altogether as her behaviour had become so abusive it had created a toxic atmosphere. This caused several problems and unfortunately meant we had to cease active campaigning for a few weeks while those problems were resolved.

I can only apologise for allowing this to happen, I should have removed the individual concerned much earlier than I did. However, despite the fact that the individual concerned continues to try to cause problems for us to this day, the situation rapidly improved following her departure and we are now in much better shape and we have resumed active campaigning.

These two issues show that as a movement we have a long way to go and that we really do need to become much more professional in what we do, even if that means acknowledging our own personal shortfalls, and where necessary, bringing in others with the appropriate skills and experience to carry out tasks where we ourselves are lacking in such skills or experience.

The second issue relates to concerns about the general direction of the Pro European movement.

This concern also manifests itself in many ways, even at the highest level, with some people advocating a route to Rejoin that would take several decades involving membership of the Customs Union and Single Market without a firm commitment to actually Rejoinjng the EU.

For many, including myself, this is simply not acceptable. We are here to Rejoin the EU and nothing less. Anything short of that would not only betray everything we have fought for over the last 6 years but would also allow the Leave Campaign to get away with their wrongdoings in 2016. Nothing less than a return to full membership is acceptable.

What is particularly concerning is that many of those who are advocating membership of the CU and SM appear to be doing so for an ulterior motive, specifically to help the Labour Party electorally. Effectively they are looking to use the pro European movement to help Labour gain power.

Given the cross party nature of the Pro European movement, going down a route which favours one political party over another could prove disastrous for us in the longer term as it may alienate significant parts of our support base. Yes, Labour supporters are vital to the pro European movement, but they do not constitute a majority – Labour voters accounted for 39% of the Remain vote in 2016, not a majority.

Supporters of one party would not find helping or supporting another party acceptable and as a movement we really must remember our cross part support base as we move forward.

Bluntly we need to stay out of political issues that are not directly related to Rejoining the EU, otherwise we will end up alienating one part of our support base or another. Indeed, it is worth pointing out at this point that 35% of the Remain vote in 2016 voted for the Tory party the year before – in other words nearly six million pro Europeans are Tories.

Despite that, many people within the pro European movement, including some prominent individuals, seem intent on the pro European movement becoming part of the wider ‘Get the Tories Out’ movement.

This is fraught with danger as if that were to happen, the pro European movement would be at serious risk of losing the support of those 6 million Tories that voted Remain in 2016. If that happens, we will never regain our EU membership.

Therefore, if we are to be successful then we need to move away from political issues that are not directly connected to Rejoining and we need to be much more nuanced in our opposition to the current Government.

Yes we absolutely must see a change in government, but we need to move away from ‘Get the Tories Out’ and move towards ‘Get the Leavers Out’ or ‘Get the ERG Out’. Indeed, whilst writing this, I am very much reminded of what Chris Patten had to say about the current Government, that they are not Tories but English Nationalists.

In addition to these concerns over the direction of the Pro European movement, I also have grave reservations about the continued focus of the movement on the negative impact of Brexit, which to my mind is simply an extension of the failed Remain Campaign of 2016.

That campaign focussed very heavily on the negative economic and trade aspects of leaving the EU, and indeed many of the warnings contained in that campaign have subsequently proved to have been well founded. Brexit is a disaster from a trade and economic perspective.

However, there are two problems with this.

The first is that it is all to easy for leavers to convince themselves that the pandemic is to blame for the problems, an argument that is very difficult to counter with people who are looking for any excuse to avoid facing up to reality, especially when they don’t really understand trade or economics.

The second, is like it or not, many Leavers simply don’t care about the economy or trade, and that their success criteria for Brexit do not include either. Such individuals are already arguing that Brexit is already a success. They base that claim on the fact that freedom of movement has been ended which amongst other things means wages are rising for UK workers, that the UK is no longer under the jurisdiction of the European Court and so on. These are the criteria that they are judging Brexit on, not the economic and trade arguments that the pro European movement is focussing on.

On top of these two specific issues, there is also the issue of how long the negative effects of Brexit will stay in the memory of the wider electorate, something which is largely reliant on media coverage. No doubt we will see further shortages as the new rules for EU trade start in the new year, but how long will they remain in the media? The answer to that can be found in the lack of continued coverage of the shortages in mid 2021.

Frankly focussing on the negative aspects of Brexit has a very limited shelf life and the pro European movement needs to move away and start focussing on issues which will actually help achieve our goal of Rejoining the EU, and there are plenty of them, such as the benefits of EU membership and explaining to an electorate that is still largely ignorant about the issue, how the EU actually works.

Another area that the pro European movement needs to focus upon is how to ensure that the Leave Campaign cannot repeat its actions in 2016, specifically the dishonesty and the law breaking, because given half a chance, they will do exactly the same again. For example, hardly a week goes by without a prominent Leaver making a misleading if not outright dishonest statement about the EU, or without seeing a misleading if not false headline in one of the usual so called ‘news’papers.

Over the course of the last year we have seen that the MPs code of conduct is not worth the paper it is written on when it comes to MPs misleading or lying to their constituents, and with Johnson himself making the final decisions when it comes to the ministerial code of conduct, that is also about as useful as a chocolate teapot!

In addition IPSO seem incapable of making a decision that goes against a newspaper such as the Express, the Government seems determined to reduce the Electoral Commission to nothing more than a paper tiger, and political advertising is not covered by any code of conduct or regulation at all!

If we are to stop a repeat of the Leave Campaign’s behaviour in 2016 then there is much to do in this area, and as we have seen in recent weeks, the British Public does appear to have reached the limit when it comes to dishonest politicians!

So what does this mean for UKIN.EU and the Campaign to Rejoin the EU?

We will continue to develop and run our ‘Blue and Yellow’ Campaign highlighting the advantages of EU membership, and we will continue to work on producing easy to understand short videos about the EU and how it works.

We will also continue to develop our campaign aimed at putting a stop to misleading and incorrect press coverage of the EU and to strengthen press regulation. We will also work on raising awareness of the fact that political advertising is not regulated in any way and campaign for an independent system of regulation to be put into place.

We will also continue to campaign for an effective system to regulate the conduct of both MPs and Ministers that stops them misleading the electorate.

We will also continue with our efforts to build pro European communities within all UK political parties and to maintain and promote our European identity whenever the opportunity presents itself.

All of course with the eventual goal of Rejoining the EU!

We are of course always open to other ideas to help achieve our goals and volunteers are always welcome

Happy new year to you all!

The EU Commissioners

One of the more persistent lies told by the Leave Campaign was that EU was run by unelected bureaucrats, specifically the EU Commissioners.

Our new video explains the role of the EU Commissioners and how they are appointed.

Protected: Statement about the the March for Rejoin otherwise known as the First National Rejoin March

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A Strategy for the Rejoin Movement

There have been a few questions recently about objectives and activities and indeed what our strategy is and should be.

We developed a high-level strategy a few months ago that focuses on four key issues. I thought it would be worthwhile to highlight these again, including why it is important to pursue each one and what we have done and are doing towards them.

Firstly though, there are a couple of intertwined issues which keep cropping up which do need addressing.

Some within the pro European movement believe it is too early to campaign for Rejoin as Brexit supporters need to see the damage Brexit does.

I disagree as this is essentially a rehash of what leavers called project fear.

Even in the midst of Brexit induced labour shortages affecting everything from bus timetables, the NHS and food supplies, we are seeing Leavers denying the obvious and blaming everyone and everything other than Brexit for the adverse consequences of their actions. They are simply not going to face up to Brexit being responsible – either now or in the future.

This is largely down to the way the original Remain Campaign was run with its focus on the risks of leaving the EU and the subsequent response of the leave campaign leadership, which was to say Remainers said that all the doom and gloom would happen the day after the referendum – which it obviously did not. The damage is much more insidious and taking time to become apparent and therefore not readily visible to many and is often hidden behind the effects of the pandemic.

Furthermore, as we have also now seen, even when Leavers are backed into a corner and have to admit that there are problems with Brexit, they will say it is all worth it – taking back control, independence and everything else that they spout out to try and justify the damage they have done .

The bottom line here is that just as focussing on the negative aspects of Brexit didn’t work for the Remain Campaign in 2016, focussing on the negative aspects of Brexit isn’t going to work for the Rejoin campaign now or in the future.

The pro European movement needs to recognise that and move on.

In addition to recognising that we also need to recognise what I believe is the biggest achievement of the Pro European movement.

Over the last 5 years together we have built an amazing cross party pro EU movement, the largest in the EU. There are very few examples of such grass roots cross party organisations in our country or indeed the wider world.

We simply must not let what we have built wither and die – doing nothing will cause that to happen, which is in itself a very strong reason for starting our campaign now.

There is also much we can do now in terms of building our organisation and organising ourselves for what lies ahead. Preparing now will also allow us to lay the ground for future battles on our own terms not those of our opposition, thereby giving us the advantage whenever that next referendum comes. We can do much of this without actually overtly campaigning for Rejoin.

As I mention above the strategy we developed consists of four strands of action

  1. Challenge the legitimacy of the decision by the current Government to take out of the EU.

As a movement we face two distinct and separate tasks. The first of these is to persuade a reluctant political establishment and electorate that a further referendum is needed.

We cannot just walk up to a future Prime Minister and ask for another referendum without a strong clear argument for one. Simply saying because we want one won’t do the trick and neither will saying because EU membership is good for us.

Both those arguments are easily countered by simply saying we held a referendum, you lost, why should hold another one. Even when there are clear benefits to EU Membership and clear disadvantages of Brexit, it is too easy for our opposition to say that is what the electorate voted for. We need a far stronger argument, particularly as my own research indicates the electorate largely sees Brexit as legitimate.

Fortunately for us the Leave Campaign provided that argument with their unprecedented industrial scale deceit and dishonesty, and their repeated serious breaches of both electoral law and data protection laws.

The research I mention above also indicates that most of the electorate are simply not aware of what the Leave Campaign did. We should make them aware and use these issues to challenge the legitimacy of Brexit.

We have started down this route with our petition calling for a public inquiry into the referendum in 2016. We should push that demand home and insist that the Leave Campaign is scrutinised and shown up for what it was – a deceitful and deceptive campaign deliberately designed to deceive the electorate.

  1. Promote the benefits of EU membership.

This is something that has simply not been done in a planned systematic way. The remain campaign spent far too much time focussing on the risks of leaving and countering the lies told by the leave campaign.

We must build a positive image of EU membership by focusing on the benefits of membership and portraying the EU in a positive light as this will be much more likely to persuade people to vote in favour of EU membership than a campaign focussing on the risks of Brexit of being outside the EU.

This campaign also needs to educate people about the role of the EU, its history and how it works. A considerable proportion of the electorate simply do not know about these issues, something which most often manifests itself in terms of the false claims about the EU being run by unelected bureaucrats.

We have started this work with our Blue and Yellow campaign highlighting the benefits of membership and we have started to produce informative videos about the EU. This campaign needs to be developed and sustained.

  1. Build pro European communities within all UK Political parties

As much as some of us may not like it, the levers of power in this country are held by political parties and unless we can persuade those political parties to back Rejoin, we are simply never going to prevail even if we start a new single issue party, something which would be fraught with difficulty and would generate substantial controversy within the pro European movement.

Whilst some of our small parties are overtly pro European, the present situation needs a lot or work.

The Liberal Democrats official policy is to support EU membership, however the current leadership is very reluctant to state that.

The Labour Party Membership is, so we are told, mainly Pro European, however the leadership of the labour party has tuned its back on the pro European vote and is chasimg the Red Wall vote.

The Conservative Party has of course been completely taken over by our opponents. However until the 2019 General Election, a majority of Tory MPs were pro European, indeed 19% of Remain voters in 2016 voted Tory in 2019.

This tells us that there is still support within the Tory party for EU membership. We must encourage those pro Europeans to make their voice heard. If that proves impossible then another avenue may be to encourage the establishment of a new right of centre pro European party.

We have also started work in this area with the establishment of social media groups and channels for all the main UK Political parties. We must develop those and encourage pro Europeans to join political parties and become active. We must encourage party members to campaign within each party for EU membership including playing motions onto the agenda of party conferences.

  1. Develop, grow and maintain our Rejoin Movement and our European identity.

Whilst we have a large pro European community in the UK, that community is deflated after the events of the last 5 years, and has suffered as a result of the pandemic which has understandably dominated political life for the last 18 months.

We need to rejuvenate this community, strengthen it and build it by celebrating our European identity.

We had big plans in this area, but sadly we had to curtail much due to Covid. Despite that we ran our I Am European campaign around the Census in March. We don’t know the outcome in terms of numbers and we won’t for a while, but despite that it was a huge success, we gained press coverage and we brought the movement together with a very practical campaign that everyone could easily participate in whilst staying safe.

We need to revisit this area and as the pandemic comes to an end and hold more events that bring is together.

We have of course started this with our planed March For Rejoin on 7th May 2022 but we do need to organise other events, not just nationally in major cities such as London, but in every town and city in the land. Considerable support for this was shown in a recent poll that we ran.

So to answer those calling for a clear strategy and plan of action, we do have one, so please get involved. Sign up for the March For Rejoin, join one of our political party sub groups and indeed a political party, sign and share petitions and share our activities and pro European social media posts.

For those of you who are keen, please also consider volunteering to help us. Yes, our team has grown. We have around 20 people actively working on our campaign now, but we need more. The more people we have the more we can do – so please get in touch if you want to help out!

March for Rejoin

Good News – The March is going ahead on 10th September

Please register for the March here

Ckick here to buy EU Flags and everything else you may need for the March

Please register for our mailing list by clicking here which will allow us to keep you updated about our activities